Gale Researcher Guide For: J. R. R. Tolkien: Architect of Modern Fantasy by Birns Nicholas

Author:Birns, Nicholas [Birns, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gale Division of Cengage Learning Inc.
Published: 2018-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Unconventionality and Moral Clarity

The completed work was a remarkable juxtaposition of themes and values. The Shire, the homeland of the hobbits, was very much based on traditional, rural England, but the other places of Middle-earth were exotic, with strange trees, flowers, and customs. Tolkien’s combination of the familiar and the unusual coupled with his intense evocation of landscape and the natural world to create a feeling at once alluring and comforting.

The rich linguistic interweave of his work, which in its indebtedness to Welsh combined the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic aspects of Britain, also contributed to this sense of density and detail. In Middle-earth everything was larger and greater than in reality—the women more beautiful, the warriors more brave, evil more terrifying and palpable. Yet, for all this epic grandeur, the psychology of the novel was unconventional and modern. The point of the quest was not to save the One Ring but to destroy it. Frodo does not succeed in this; at the last minute he fails. He is saved only by the half-conscious self-sacrifice of Gollum, who had trailed Frodo in his passage to Mordor, seeking revenge and repossession of his “precious” ring but also developing a kind of love and admiration for Frodo. That there is moral inadequacy in Frodo and deeply buried residual good in Gollum complicates the moral canvas of the novel considerably. Moreover, Tolkien came to feel the real hero of the book was Sam Gamgee, Frodo’s working-class servant who accompanies his master on the entirety of the quest, never flags, and resists all temptations. Unlike Frodo, who must go to Valinor to be healed of his wounds, Sam gets to live a full life in the Shire, marry, have children, and rise to be the most powerful official in the Shire. This Dickensian saga of a poor boy made good becomes, in Tolkien’s hands, an exemplary case of how the modern individual can resist the depredations of war, technology, and brutality. Furthermore, though Tolkien’s work is split between good and evil, readers see some characters, such as the warriors Boromir and his father, Denethor, start out as good and succumb to evil, whereas others, such as Treebeard, the Ent, or tree-shepherd, want the good side to win but mourn that neither side seems to truly care about the trees he loves. The Lord of the Rings is a work of great moral clarity. But it is not all black and white.

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